Truvelo 20x110mm Sniper Rifle

South African gun maker Truvelo is producing a single shot anti material sniper rifle chambered in the powerful 20x110mm Hispano round. The gun is 6.5 feet in length and weighs 55 lbs (unloaded without optics or tripod).

The company also manufactures this rifle chambered for the smaller 20x82mm Mauser and 14.5×114 mm Russian rounds.

Founder and Dictator-In-Chief of TFB. A passionate gun owner, a shooting enthusiast and totally tacti-uncool. Favorite first date location: any gun range. Steve can be contacted here.

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bbmg

Impressive gun but when you look at the history of 20mm rifles, not the most exceptional. In WW2 the Lahti L-39 and Solothurn S-18 were both chambered for the 20 x 138 round in a semi-automatic action, while the Japanese Type 97 fired a 20 x 125 round on full auto. Both are clearly bigger cartridges than the 20 x 110 fired by the Truvelo:

Can you really compare a modern 20 mm cartridge to a WW2 era one just by the size alone? If I had to guess, that 20 x 110mm will probably have a much higher chamber pressure due to modern propellants, and also possibly a heavier projectile (again, different material and different construction).

Not trying to take away anything from our country’s “Elephant Gun” and its designer but, you know, apples and oranges.

bbmg

The Truvelo is advertised as being chambered for the 20 x 110 Hispano, which was developed well before WW2.

There is no suggestion that modern cartridges are loaded to higher specifications in terms of of muzzle energy.

The M919 APFSDS round fires a 96 gram projectile at 1385 m/s. Downloaded to reduce the velocity to “only” 1020 m/s (still 3350 fps!) to reduce muzzle energy to the same 50K joules, you would get much more impressive penetration figures from a proven projectile, travelling with a much flatter trajectory.

It would be more interesting if focus was made on developing new rounds like Steyr was doing with its AMR ( http://www.steyr-aug.com/amr.htm ) rather than new rifles firing a cartridge that is almost a century old.

The 20x110mm HS404-type cannon saw limited use in US aircraft during WW2, primarily by the US Navy. Its use in USN aircraft was almost universal in postwar designs until the round was replaced by an even more powerful 20x110mm cartridge design, which was sort of a magnum version of the 20x102mm cartridge adopted in the 1950s by the US Air Force for the M39 cannon, and later, the M61 Vulcan cannon. However, the 20x110mm USN-chambered Mk11 and Mk12 cannons were ultimately displaced in later USN aircraft by the M61 Vulcan in 20x102mm.

That said, a lot of the surplused 20x110mm HS404-type aircraft cannon were converted for deck-mountings during the Vietnam War. The 20x110mm Oerlikon (using a different cartridge entirely from the other 20x110mm) was the primary light anti-aircraft weapon on USN ships during WW2, but these were stripped off postwar due to their ineffectiveness on Kamikaze attacks. The post-WW2 conventional wisdom was that nothing less than radar-direction and proximity fuzes would work for conventional guns, and ultimately, guided missiles could replace everything for surface and anti-air defense. After the Tonkin Gulf incident, folks started to realize that some USN ships had no means of self-defense against light surface craft. The 20x110mm HS404-type deck mounted cannon remained in USN and US Coast Guard service until the adoption of the Mk38, which uses the 25x139mm Bushmaster cannon. As a result, there was still a lot of surplus 20x110mm ammunition.

Several years ago someone in USSOCOM got the bright idea that it might be nice to have a heavy anti-materiel rifle using a cartridge that could deliver a larger amount of explosive than the .50 caliber Mk211 Multipurpose. Ideally, this would have been chambered for the current service 20x102mm ammunition, but when folks realized that this might be too much recoil, they were willing to settle for the surplus 20x110mm. NSWC-Crane had acquired a few for testing, and David Armstrong gave a presentation given at the 2009 NDIA Small Arms conference. (FWIW: Armstrong designed and patented the Mk14 chassis stock and M4 SOPMOD stock.)

Cheers for that Daniel, those DTIC presentations really are a goldmine.

Clodboy

Apparently, Depleted Uranium projectiles were developed in the 70s… I wonder how much of a difference that makes in terms of firepower.

As for propellants, apparently there really hasn’t been much development in terms of explosive power since the 1930s (unlike pre-smokeless cartridges like the .45-70, which becomes a whole new level of powerful when loaded with smokeless powder), it’s still nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose… additives like nitroguanidine have been used to reduce flash, others to increase stability, but until the new generation of RDX/HMX-based propellants hits the market, that 20mm probably isn’t going to be that much hotter-loaded than it was 70 years ago.

dude

Great company, super products. I have seen those sniper rifles up close and handled the 14.5 back in the days when I still lived in Johannesburg.

FormerSFMedic

Truvelo does make good guns. SOCOM has purchased some of the .50 BMG variants for limited use and they performed very well.

D

Thing begs to be mounted onto a technical or something, instead of that ungainly tripod.

.55HE

Big rounds have been around for a long time. Ww1 Germany had the 13.9 at round
Britain followed with the Godsel AT rifle in 1919, (the predecessor to the 1937 Boys .55 which used the round ultimately) then the US used the .55 case as the basis for the.50 BMG round in 1921(minus the magnum belt) There are heaps of anti tank rifles in many variations and cals from many countries from 1917 to 1945. Solothurns and Lahtis were the cream of the auto 20mm rifles.
The solo had a quick change barrel, scope, carry handle and came with 2 spare tubes, scope and 300 rounds. No real difference to the ntw. The boys is the only true one man portable large rifle from ww2. Even the soviets generally carried their PTRS and D’s with teams.
My rifle weighs 40lbs dry, but I can carry it no drama. The .55 cnc full copper pills I use weigh 805grn’s and I’ve chronied them at 2980fps using 225grn’s of ADI’s 50bmg powder. (I reload and use .50bmg cases with the .55 pills. the lack of a magnum belt poses no problem, the primer pockets need to be grubbed out on a lathe, and the neck resized. The shoulder angles differ from the boys case/chamber and have to be fire formed) Just a touch under 15,000ft/lbs at the muzzle. And accurate…. The boys has open iron sights adjustable to 300 and 500 yds.
I can group 2 inches at 300 and hit a microwave sized rock at over 800
With iron sights. Not bragging , just saying these old war horses perform nearly as well as their modern counterparts, 70 plus years later!!
The damage factor impresses me every time.
The featured rifle looks very nice. Looks like that tripod is necessary too….

leo

You know your gun’s too heavy when you need a damn tripod for it.

Nicks87

I think I need one.

Mike Knox

Annoying Neighbors?

SleepyDave

TB: I have vermin to kill.
HH: You must have big rats if you need Hattori Hanzo’s steel.
TB: … Huge.

mechamaster

Now I see a SNIPER CANNON !

Josh

That mount almost looks like a T&E. Could you use this thing for indirect maybe.

FormerSFMedic

SOCOM has done quite a bit of testing with these rifles chambered for the big 20mm cartridge. We bought two of them back in 2010 and they performed very well. Each rifle costs something like $19,000 a piece for DOD procurement.

NickB

I can’t imagine the flinch that would come from shooting this with out that huge tri-pod

tony

Dear Santa…

Richard

Nice idea but do weight and fact it single shot rifle I do not see replace Barrett M82 rifle any time soon in feild.

bbmg

single shot because with 20 mike mike, you only need to shoot ’em once 😀

6677

Damn. Although my personal choice in the event I need to go T-Rex shooting would be an NTW-20, that thing just shouts Halo (or vice versa seeming as it game before the games, I think the designers basically straight copied the NTW20 into halo, just moved to magazine to the more usual vertical configuration, otherwise they’re near identical).

I can’t help but think what is the actual usage for these weapons. I would assume with the raw amount of kinetic energy they must produce they must be capable of bunching their way into just about anything?

Reverend Clint

whens the FBI gonna get one?

AKMSF

Needs an ATV mount and thermal optics.

Dougie

I would like to see it on a CROW or RWS.

PLUS

Does the NTW-20 has this cartridge too?

I’ve read some information says the NTW-20 has 20×110 version, but it’s hard to distinguish those version through pictures(Even the NTW-14.5 is also difficult to distinguish from NTW-20)

Am I read a fake information?

6677

The NTW-20 simply swaps the boltface and barrel for a caliber conversion, I believe (from the name) it was built for the 20mm cartridge originally so the less powerful (but still beastly) 14.5mm will hardly be stressing the action

bbmg

There are two 20mm versions of the NTW-20, one chambered for the 20 x 82 round and one for the 20 x 110 round.